


Too Kinky To Torture

by Britpacker



Category: The Thick of It (TV)
Genre: Established Relationship, F/M, Marital Disharmony
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-08
Updated: 2013-12-18
Packaged: 2018-01-04 02:18:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,236
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1075372
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Britpacker/pseuds/Britpacker
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam’s developing a little theory about the Secretary of State for Social Affairs and Citizenship.  It’s not one that Malcolm is going to like.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. DoSAC On Duty

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by a comment on The Thick Of It TV Tropes page that perhaps Malcolm’s tirades don’t get the desired response out of Nicola because she actually rather enjoys them!

Carefully smoothing down her dark green skirt Sam Cassidy eased her way past a pair of wide-eyed award winning community policemen into the large ground-floor reception room, desperately trying not to grind her teeth as she retuned Oliver Reeder’s smile. This was a purely departmental do. There was no need for the Communications Directorate to have a presence at all.

She was going to kill him.

Her resolve held for all of two minutes; right up until she caught a whiff of his warm, woodsy aftershave in the air and felt his presence like a physical caress despite the careful distance he kept while murmuring into her ear at the buffet table. “Evening, lass. You’re looking much too classy for this shite-heap. Wanna sneak off somewhere better?”

“I’m only here because you shagged me into it, Malc,” she reminded him, twisting awkwardly to return his naughty smile. “You’re looking good, by the way. Very sharp.”

“We’re letting Nic’la Murray out in public, love. I need all the fire-fighters I can get without calling 99-fucking-9.” He didn’t inch back when she straightened with a plate of stale and unappealing nibbles balanced on one hand. If she hadn’t known better, Sam would have accused him of flirting. In public.

 _Scratch that_. She did know better.

Malcolm Tucker was the biggest flirt in government. Utterly assured in his own sexuality, perfectly aware of the effect his charisma had on both sexes, and mischievous enough to use it on a whim. With his particular knowledge of the effect he could have on her…

An interminable evening, Sam decided, had just got longer. And a great deal more interesting.

“It could be worse.” Silently she accepted his challenge, tilting her head so she could look him dead in the eye. “Fatty’s got a bash next week.”

“I’ve got a headache that night.” Deadpan, he arched a brow. Sam’s glossed lips twitched. 

“I see you’ve got the whole squad in.” Frankie. Ed. Bernadette. It was nights like this, she suspected, he missed his Motherwell attack dog most of all. She, certainly, would have felt more comfortable letting the minister and her advisers loose on the unsuspecting public servants of Britain with Jamie MacDonald on the prowl.

“Upstanding citizens, the fucking press and Nic’la’s crooked husband all in the same fucking room.” Briefly the mask dropped and she saw genuine concern tighten his hawkish features. Malcolm rubbed his chin vigorously before helping himself to a posh salmon canapé from her plate. “If that’s not a recipe for Arma-fuckin’-geddon, I don’t know what is!”

“The P.M. making a guest appearance?” When he choked on his treat she felt almost guilty; but he’d nicked it from her stash to begin with so it sort of served him right. Discreetly Sam snagged a small glass of something cheap and sparkling from a passing waiter’s tray, wafting it daintily beneath his nose. “A Remington speech? Ollie stripping off and streaking past the Cenotaph?”

“Give him three glasses of this fuckin’ gnat’s piss and he’d probably do that. Oh God, here they come. King Solid-Arse the Shifty and the Queen of fucking Sulker!”

She didn’t need to glance around. People started to applaud and over the sound of slapping palms Sam could hear the voice of the minister, high with a mix of excitement and (most likely) terror. “Good evening, oh no, please don’t get up, it’s such a pleasure to see you all here!”

“Well, she got that right,” she whispered. “Oh God help us all, Ollie’s acting as Lord Chamberlain!”

Malcolm grimaced before forcing his mobile features back into an expression of professional neutrality, because there he was; Oliver Reeder got up like a cast-off shop window dummy, leaning down to murmur the first name into his boss’s ear. Nicola’s face lit up and she pumped the hand of the blushing middle-aged female nurse energetically. “And this is my husband, James,” Sam heard her say, much too bright while the plump, pasty-faced gentleman in question cracked a pained and reluctant smile.

“Bent as a nine-bob fuckin’ note,” Malcolm growled in her ear. “Shit, the mad cow’s seen us.”

Sure enough Nicola angled herself toward them, dispensing awkward smiles left and right, pausing now and again as an especially honoured guest crossed her path. Glenn Cullen, Ollie, Terri Coverley; the departmental heavyweights – which said everything anyone needed to know about DoSAC’s Whitehall ranking – clustered around her, equerries to the monarch with none of the discreet professionalism of Elizabeth II’s flower-collectors. “Hi Malcolm, I’m glad you could make it. You’ve not met James, have you? James, this is Malcolm Tucker – here to keep an eye on me for the P.M., that’s right, isn’t it?”

“Not just you, Nicola.” Carefully emphasising every syllable, Malcolm accepted the flabby hand proffered; he even, Sam noticed admiringly, managed not to wipe it on his trouser leg the moment it was released. “I told him not to use DoSAC as the guinea pig for this _meet-the-masses_ shit, but does he ever listen?”

“If he doesn’t listen to you, there’s no hope for the Cabinet.” James Murray’s bulging light blue eyes had shifted beyond the tall Scot to his companion. Sam stiffened her shoulders, an instinctive reaction against the crawling sensation up her bare forearms. 

“This is Sam – my PA.” Malcolm had noticed Murray’s wandering eye as quickly as the man’s wife, and he was no more pleased; Sam recognised the slight tightening of the vocal chords, the minimal tensing of his erect posture. Obediently, she extended her hand to be shaken.

Flabby, damp fingers closed around it. Wet, puffy lips brushed across her knuckles. “Increasing the glamour quotient, eh?” Mr Murray drawled, releasing her fingers with a last limp squeeze. Even over her own, she could hear her boss’s quick exhale.

“And the competency level. Nic’la, you’ve gone through the notes? Know your line?”

“Ollie’s been nagging me all week, Malcolm. I’m prepped, all right, I’m fucking prepped.”

He nodded; he almost looked convinced. “OK, then go and get mingling, yeah? Tom wants this front page for all the right fucking reasons tomorrow, all right?”

“It’s fine, Malcolm, I’m good in social situations. You just drink our cheap booze and relax. Glenn, hi, I was just telling Malcolm how much we’ve all been looking forward to meeting so many wonderful people!”

“This is Janette McMullen, Secretary of State; the NHS National Home Visitor of the Year.”

Over the beaming guest’s shoulder, Ollie mouthed something with the exaggerated care of a proud parent to a toddling firstborn. “Oh, from Leamington Spa – my part of the world, you know!” Nicola trilled exuberantly. “Do come and help yourself to something from the buffet, Janette – this is my husband James, by the way, do you have a partner here….”

“Er, no, he left me last year. Said it was like being married to the fucking NHS and went off with a barmaid.”

“Oh.” Glenn’s expression had become as pinched as an incontinent pensioner’s in A&E Ollie seemed to be hoping that if he shut his eyes tight enough the whole humiliation would just disappear. Nicola cleared her throat. Squeezed the unfortunate woman’s hand. 

“It must make life so much _harder_ when there’s no support at home,” she said gently, and Sam could only hope the tears in Mrs McMullen’s eyes blinded her to the poisonous look being directed Mr Murray’s way. “Erm – will you excuse us, gentlemen? James, if you wouldn’t mind getting us drinks – Glenn, will you show James to the bar?”

Only when the knot around them began to disperse did Sam allow herself to breathe. She almost stopped again when she heard Malcolm’s voice, low and urgent on a word he seldom used.

“Ollie!”

Even the man himself seemed surprised not to receive the usual withering nickname. “Count the silver fucking teaspoons, all right? And make sure that devious tosser of a husband of hers goes through at least one metal detector on the way out. He’s the type’d have your gold fillings straight out of your fucking mouth, that one! OK?”

“Yeah.” The younger man stuffed his hands deep into his trouser pockets, frowning at the floor for a moment. “I _did_ brief her, Malcolm. So did Terri. That shouldn’t have happened.”

“This whole fuckin’ thing shouldn’t be happening.” Angela Heaney brushed past on her way to the savoury nibbles and Malcolm flashed her an affable smile. “Hi Angela; like the dress!” he called. Sam would have sworn, even in the subdued light that concealed the curling edges of the open sandwiches, that the attractive journalist blushed. 

Momentarily the urge to step on his foot with her lethally pointed heel was almost overpowering. She’d been right in the first place.

It was going to be a very long night.


	2. Marital Bliss The Murray Way

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There’s no such thing as downtime in this job. Unfortunately for Sam, neither is there anything beyond her boss’s remit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The enforcer's work is never done, and anything mixing the Murrays and a public place has got to be a disaster. We know from Nicola's few comments on the subject it, goes with their marital territory!

Two hours later, abandoned by Malcolm and bored halfway to a coma by Terri’s shaggy dog tales, she was ready to set off the fire alarms as a way of ending the torment. The babble of voices, encouraged by a positive flood of free booze, had risen to the point she felt it was clattering around inside her skull trying to get out, and if she had to fend off another wandering hand – usually from a member of the department or the public, neither the Communications team nor the attendant hacks would dare lay a finger on Malcolm Tucker’s secretary – she refused to be held responsible for her actions.

She glimpsed him occasionally: hovering close to their hostess, his brow furrowed; sweet-talking some unsuspecting voter who’d leave the building wondering why the papers ever said so many nasty things about that charming man; muttering animatedly to one member of his staff or another, hands moving as rapidly as his lips before the unfortunate in question scuttled to do his bidding. Now and then he’d glance up, as if he could feel her staring.

Sometimes, just for an instant, he smiled. Every time that happened, Sam’s night improved.

Engrossed in conversation with a couple of Glaswegian social workers she lost sight of him though her eyes moved restlessly, seeking out that familiar lofty grey head for the pure pleasure of introducing him to his compatriots. “Oh, I love working for Malcolm,” she said gaily when they probed. “He’s straight as a die, and don’t believe a word of the rubbish the press write; he’s always been absolutely lovely to me. Hang on, he’s just come in, let me give him a shout. Malcolm! Hi, Malcolm, can you spare us a minute?”

“I’ve been looking for you, lass – sorry to have to do this, but d’ you mind if I borrow Sam here for a minute?” His most charming smile firmly in place Malcolm offered a hand to first one, then the other before grasping her gently by the elbow. Sam’s slim shoulders lifted through an apologetic shrug. 

“He does find work for me 24/7 – that’s the only problem,” she confided, straight-faced while they laughed. Malcolm cocked an eyebrow. “Fellow countrymen of yours, Boss. I’ve just been telling them how wonderful you are, and you go summoning me for duty out of hours!”

“No such thing as out of hours in this job darling, you know that. You’ll be Craig and Maureen, the social workers Nic’la’s been telling me about, yes? Give me ten minutes to deal with this little local disturbance and I’ll come and find you, OK? I’ve not been home in a while; how’re they getting on with the Commonwealth Games sites?”

“Looks good so far.” While her colleague gawked, clearly amazed to be identified so easily by the busiest man in government, Maureen Kelly answered for both. “We’re here for the evening, so whenever you’ve got time…”

“I’ll look forward to it.” The warmth in the words tugged Sam’s heart strings, always more than usually susceptible where he was concerned. It was all she could do to keep herself from squeezing his hand as he guided her toward the main doors.

“You should take a weekend off, Malc. Go home. Let your Mum and Mairi make a fuss of you.”

“You know pet, it sounded quite tempting ‘til that last bit!” The laughter which should have informed the words was gone, along with the warmth that had animated him a millisecond before. Tension sliced the fine lines at the corners of his eyes and pulled the pale skin taut across the high bridge of his nose. “Glenn! Get those fucking doors shut and if anybody asks for the toilets show ‘em up the back stairs, right? Who’s the fucking first aider in the department?”

“It’s Robyn, but you don’t think… I mean, domestic violence on government property’s beyond the pale, Malcolm!”

“I don’t know if they’re knockin’ the shit out of each other but there’s always the chance I’ll do it for them, OK?” 

“Er, right.” Their altercation at Conference still clear in his mind – if not across his face – the older man closed the doors behind them. Sam frowned.

“I don’t give a fuck _what_ you think of the policy James, this is _my_ office and I will _not_ have you deliberately humiliating me!” The anguished voice of the Secretary of State rang across the quiet lobby, every word being noted by the pair of excited journalists trying to make themselves invisible behind the imported decorative greenery. “And don’t think I didn’t notice you pinching Kelly Peters’ arse, you lecherous _bastard!_ Her boyfriend plays rugby for the Army in case you’re interested, and don’t fucking pretend you’re not!”

“How do you find being such a fucking frump with all these attractive women around you, Nicola? God knows you’re never going to stand out for brains or personality, _darling!_ ”

Something thumped against the ante room wall. Sam winced, hoping against hope it wasn’t one of the absurdly expensive energy-efficient lamps Remtard had insisted be installed across Whitehall. 

There again, if they needed a distraction from the sordid tale of a minister committing murder on government property…

“You _fucking_ arsehole! I _knew_ I should’ve listened to Malcolm, he _said_ I didn’t need to drag you out from under your fucking rock!”

So close to him, Sam felt his intake of breath as if it were her own. If the situation hadn’t been so embarrassingly public, it might almost have been funny.

“Oi! What d’ you pair think you’re doing, have you never had a disagreement with the other half or something?” Sam would always say Malcolm Tucker’s bark was worse than his bite; but there again the bark, when unleashed, was fucking terrifying. The novice from the _Mirror_ dropped his notepad; the more experienced man from the _Guardian_ froze as perfectly as a sentry outside Buckingham Palace except for his lower jaw, which flapped repeatedly.

And uselessly. 

“Come on, John, family problems are off-limits and you fucking know it.” The abrupt change of tack caught her off-balance. Mid-stride, Sam stuttered to a stop opposite the unfortunate hack, watching his colour change under her employer’s steely glare. “I mean you wouldn’t want _your_ domestics on the front page, right? She taken you back yet, by the way?”

“Er, well, I mean… No, actually, Malcolm. She said it was the final straw this time. Threw a pot of red paint all over my new convertible.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.” Nobody could have been more smoothly sympathetic. “So, you’ll not be exposing anyone else’s wee marital difficulties, then? It’d be awkward, wouldn’t it, drawing attention to your own? And you – bland fuckin’ robot droid there, aren’t you the one had the run-in with that rent boy a while back? Bet your editor wouldn’t like that on the front page of tomorrow’s _Sun_ , would he?”

“It, er, well it was all a misunderstanding, Malcolm. The police advised him not to press charges…. I don’t suppose you could tell me where the toilets are?”

“I could: but it’s one of the perks of my job to see nasty wee twats like you shittin’ themselves in public.” Ice glittered in his eyes. Sam could almost have felt sorry for the man. “You heard nothing, right? Neither of you heard a fucking thing that deserves to be on your editors’ desks. Round the corner, second on the right, yeah, go together; that’ll cause some talk in the pub tomorrow, won’t it?”

One scarlet, the other ashen, the two journalists bolted. Sam clicked her tongue.

“Honestly, Malc! Is there anybody in the Lobby you don’t have the dirt on?”

“Oh, I hope not, lass. That’d be falling down on the job, wouldn’t it?” Even as he teased her Malcolm was checking the area for further witnesses. Seeing the coast clear, he charged, barging the antechamber door with his shoulder.

“I don’t know if this is what you call _foreplay_ in your house, but either way would you get a fucking room somewhere else?” he said, almost cheerful, by way of introduction. James Murray was stopped mid-shout, his weak mouth hanging open.

“Malcolm if you don’t mind, this is a _private_ conversation between my husband and I.”

“Sorry Queenie, but it’s so fucking public the hack pack’s hovering out there takin’ down every fuckin’ word.” Sam pulled the door closed behind them, instinct kicking in to protect his minor untruth. All her unusually high colour drained from the Nicola Murray’s face.

“Shitting Henry! Now look what you’ve done, you _fucker!_ ”

“Oh, it’s _my_ fault you decided to throw a paddywack in the middle of your own fucking department, is it?” His cheeks bulging like an overfed toad’s, James Murray shrank visibly under three combined glares. “Tell me Malcolm, how does anything get done around here with my good lady on top; which, let me tell you, is _not_ a position she’s good at! I may not like your whole Fourth Sector initiative, but let me give you a tip: with her in charge, it’ll be a fucking disaster!”

“Cabinet ministers aren’t in charge of government policy,” Malcolm pointed out reasonably, thoroughly enjoying the impotent rage of the Cabinet minister present. “And what’s your problem with the Fourth Sector anyway? Oh, no, hang on, I know! It’ll mean your company of fat cats tightening their red braces, right? You’ll have to cut all those little _extra charges_ of yours on key worker housing projects or lose your fuckin’ contracts, yes?”

As if someone had stuck a pin in the side of his face – his wife sprang to mind as a probable candidate – Murray’s wide, weak features deflated. “Albany is a completely ethical company with a reputation for excellence in delivery,” he squeaked, the tone familiar to anyone who had heard assorted male ministers over the years having their balls squeezed in a vice. “And those PFI contracts were won through a carefully scrutinised tender process!”

“Oh, I’m sure they were.” Wounded pride forgotten Nicola was watching his lips with the rapt intensity of a hare in the headlights; out of the firing line for once and free to watch the fuck-puppet master at work, urbane and assured as he pissed out the last small smoulderings of fire. “Still, it wouldn’t look good to the general public, would it? A minister’s husband makin’ a scene over a government initiative just because it might cost his company a few hundred grand a year? Six million your profit last tax year, wasn’t it? If I was a betting man – which I’m not – I’d put my life’s fucking savings on most of that coming through your government work.”

“Eighty per cent of it according to the annual report,” Nicola chimed in, with a disloyalty Sam had to silently applaud. “I read it, James; I thought one of us should make the effort.”

His muttered “Bitch!” struck like a slap in the face. Malcolm cleared his throat.

“Nic’la if you’ve got nothing better to do there’s a room full of unlucky fuckers through there who’re expecting to have their picture taken with ye. Sam – be a good girl and get Mrs Murray’s driver on standby, please. You must have to be indoors before ten by the terms of your fuckin’ ASBO, James, right?”

His throat worked furiously. But, looking straight up into the ice-cold eyes of the government’s chief enforcer, James Murray couldn’t make a sound.

“The driver’ll come back for you, Nicola, OK?” The deliberate pronunciation was a peace offering, understood and recognised by all sides. Her head waggled.

“Thanks, Malcolm. The hacks…”

“Leave ‘em to me. Now get into that fucking hall and be lady of the fuckin’ manor, all right? You – Toad of Toad Hall, you go with her and keep your feet out of your fucking mouth for fifteen minutes. And the next time you’re invited to a Whitehall reception, do us all a favour. Stay at fuckin’ HOME!”

He took the precaution, she noticed, of roaring the last word right into the shrivelling Murray’s face, hunching his shoulders and stooping his elegant frame to ensure the message was received. “I’ll go and call the car, then,” Sam volunteered brightly, holding the door long enough for the ministerial couple to stagger through, then letting it slam shut behind them. “Was she pissed when she said _yes_ , do you think? _Repulsive_ little slug! Grab me a drink, will you?”

“No problem.” He hesitated, reluctance in every long, lean line of him. “Next time Tom decides we’ve got to open Whitehall to the fuckin’ electorate, remind me to suggest the fucking Foreign Office. At least Alan doesn’t have a partner.

“Well,” he added, the old, malicious gleam returning to his eyes. “Not one he’s gonna bring out in public anyway! Come on, love; I want to find those two countrymen of mine before Nic’la gets her fangs into them and bores the poor fuckers to death.”

She took a chance, striking with a cobra’s speed to plant a kiss on the vulnerable spot at the side of his neck. “Not much longer now,” she pledged, aware of a sharp pulse of heat between her thighs at the naked lust that flashed across his face. “Soon as the photographs have been taken we can go, you said?”

He nodded sharply. “Thank God she doesn’t have to give a fucking speech or we’d be here all night,” he muttered, drawing a hand across his face. Sam grinned cheekily.

“Yes, but at least you wouldn’t have to worry about her cocking up in front of a roomful of people,” she reminded him. “What’s the worst that can happen while she’s mingling? She can only cock up to three or four people at a time, and that’s nothing, is it?”

She should have known, Sam reflected later, that those optimistic words would come back to haunt her.


	3. Fallout

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The morning after isn’t all hangovers and happy headlines. Could it ever be with DoSAC?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sam does some thinking aloud and scares the bejesus out of Malcolm. Thanks as ever for reading!

“SAM!”

His roar reverberated through the halls of Number Ten like an outraged boar’s, causing people around the lobby to halt and stare. “Bastard!” those closest to her heard the Secretary of State for Social Affairs and Citizenship snarl as she stormed toward the famous door. “ _Fucking_ bastard!”

She knew everyone was watching her, surreptitiously, as she rose from her desk and approached his lair. Even after all these years she still heard the low whistling sound of the uninitiated sucking in their breath at her boldness, not even knocking before she entered. 

As if half of Westminster hadn’t heard the invitation!

He was still pacing, anger crackling around him like a force field. “I assume it didn’t go well,” she said, dry as only she would dare to be. Malcolm pulled up short.

“Does it ever with Dame Ellen McArseache?” he groused, accepting the steaming thermos mug she’d had the foresight to prepare on the minister’s painfully late arrival. “Jesus Christ! She fucks up her figures – again – and somehow it’s _my_ fuckin’ fault the cartoonists have a fucking field day! I’m gonna grab that skinny clump o’ crusty cack Ollie and shove him up her arse so hard she’ll be talking with his voice for a week!”

“Did he add an extra nought again?” she asked sympathetically. Malcolm scowled.

“Subtracted. Twat! As if we’re only going to earmark two million for an initiative the size of the Fourth Sector! You’d think even Nic’la Murray would’ve seen something wrong in that!”

“She doesn’t actually _read_ what’s in her briefing notes, Malc. You could write “I am a hairy halfwit and my slimy arse of a husband’s hung like a miniature poodle” and she’d trot it out for the entire British media without a second thought.”

An evil glint lit his eyes, bringing out a greenish sparkle from the grey depths and her stomach dropped. “Don’t you dare!” she warned, the words emerging through a gust of horrified laughter. Malcolm tipped his cup to her.

“Don’t go putting ideas into my head, lassie; and don’t pretend you wouldn’t love to see the daft mare do it,” he said cordially, waving her to the chair that faced his own. Sam perched herself on the corner of his desk instead, reliant on the mild impertinence to amuse him.

Rather than sit down he loomed over her, a posture anyone else would find fucking terrifying that served only to send a little trickle of excitement the length of her ramrod-straight spine. “You’ve put the hacks straight, I suppose?” she suggested, tilting her chin to look right up into those fascinating, changeable eyes. To her disappointment irritation chased the laughter away.

“Simple little slip of the tongue; ministers are only human, _un_ -fucking-fortunately. She didn’t like that.”

“What, being human?”

“Making a stupid mistake I can’t terrify the hacks into dropping. She’s gonna be laughed at in the press for a week over this, and she’s a Cabinet minister: they’d rather be crucified than laughed at.”

“I’ll get the carpenters in, shall I? Send Ed out for some biscuits. We could make a party of it.”

“Watch your lip, girl.” He ruffled her hair fondly, some of the strain leeching out of him when she chuckled and arched into his touch. “When her crooked husband uses her name to influence a contract I can threaten the editors into ignoring it; when they turn into Big Mummy and Pygmy fuckin’ Haystacks in the middle of a reception I can scare the tossers off. When she fucks her sums up in front of an unsuspecting member of the tweeting public, there’s nothing I can do. The answer’s pretty obvious, yeah?”

“Get your facts straight, Minister?” she suggested, sliding into the visitor’s chair when he subsided with a sigh into his own. 

“Oh, you could hear me, then?” 

“The policeman on the doorstep could probably hear you. Anyway she always breaks windows when she starts shouting back, she’s far too shrill.”

“My ears are still ringing,” he agreed gloomily. “You know Sam, sometimes I think she actually _enjoys_ being shouted at.”

She answered without thinking. “Oh, I dare say she does.”

“Just because it turns you on when I’m rippin’ some empty-headed areshole to shreds in here, darlin’!”

“Seriously, Malc.” Leaning forward, her elbows dislodging the papers scattered across his desk, Sam stared at her lover, daring him to look away. “We’ve seen what her marriage is like. It’s obvious she can’t stand the slimy toerag; I reckon she’d divorce him tomorrow if she didn’t think it’d damage her career. I bet it’s nothing but shouting and slanging matches of an evening _chez_ Murray!”

“And because her marriage is an environmental fucking disaster, you think she likes being bollocked? Jesus, if she’s that fuckin’ kinky…”

“Yes, darling, but it’s nothing personal with you.” Most ministers were convinced the enforcer detested them; it was a closely guarded secret that Malcolm actually couldn’t have given a monkey’s brass bollocks for the whole motley crew. “There’s none of the emotional shit to cloud the issue; and anyway you’re _so_ much sexier than that flabby slimeball she’s got at home.”

Making him blush in the office. Only she could do that.

It only lasted a moment. All the colour drained, as if every drop of blood had been leeched from his body. “Jesus, I hope she doesn’t think like you do, love!”

“She’s a bit dim, Malcolm, not blind.” And if he hadn’t noticed the brittle sparkle about the Minister for Interminable Meddling when they clashed she, with the jealous eye of a lover, most definitely had. “Come off it, Gorgeous! James Murray’s about on a par with our revered leader in the looks department. I know I’m biased, but even you’ve got to admit you’re easier on the eye than that!”

“Well I’m glad you think so.” He’d never wanted for feminine company when he had sought it; Malcolm would never deny the perfectly legitimate charge of being a monumental flirt, either. It had simply been a consequence of his ever-increasing workload – and the subsequent raising of his public profile - that between his divorce and the appearance of Miss S.J. Cassidy at the desk outside his door, the few affairs he’d managed to enjoy had been inevitably curtailed.

“You, sir, are what our American cousins would call a complete silver fox,” she told him solemnly, delighted by the way his mobile features twisted with a schoolboy’s disgust at the phrase. “If she’s going to have abuse hurled at her on a regular basis, why shouldn’t Nicola at least get some enjoyment from it? I’ll bet there’s not much fun at home!”

“I’m gonna have to stop callin’ the stupid bint so many names, then.” Torn between a preen at her admiration and horror at the prospect of giving Glummy Mummy any kind of kick but the physical one her arse demanded, Malcolm lay back in his seat and knuckled his tired eyes. Sam pulled herself to her feet and rounded the desk, stooping to brush a tender kiss across his brow.

“Oh that’s a resolution I can’t see you keeping,” she teased, touched by his brief quirk of a smile in reply. “Next time she fucks up on national television you’ll be roaring as loud as ever!”

“Maybe.” He caught her hand, giving a quick squeeze before shooing her on her way. “You really think she enjoys being shouted at, eh?”

“ _Definitely_ too kinky to torture.”

She shut the door on his burst of laughter but by the time she reached her desk the phone was ringing. “Sam Cassidy,” she said, keeping it professional while fully aware of where the call was coming from. 

Sure enough his voice, rich with mirth and just husky enough to send a shiver to her toes, oozed into her ear. “You’ll pay for turning my stomach like that, lass. Nic’la’s not the only kinky one around here, is she?”

_Damn!_

He cut the line before she could find an answer that combined wit, brevity and cleanliness in the necessary proportion for her environment. Painfully conscious of the warm seepage between her thighs she opened up the report she was supposed to be finalising for him and let the words swim like so many tadpoles before her eyes. He knew all her little kinks by now, damn him!

Her vision cleared and a smile, slow and satisfied, spread across Sam’s delicately carved features. She knew a few of his as well: certainly enough to know that with the most fertile mind in Whitehall diverted down that particular track, her Friday night – and probably her weekend too – was definitely one to look forward to.


End file.
